This drone photo taken on Nov. 11, 2025 shows staff members sorting parcels at a branch of China Post in Hengyang City, central China's Hunan Province. E-commerce and logistics companies across China are working at full capacity during the annual Double Eleven shopping festival. (Photo by Cao Zhengping/Xinhua)

This drone photo taken on Nov. 11, 2025 shows staff members sorting parcels at a branch of China Post in Hengyang City, central China’s Hunan Province. E-commerce and logistics companies across China are working at full capacity during the annual “Double Eleven” shopping festival. (Photo by Cao Zhengping/Xinhua)

China’s annual biggest online shopping festival “Double 11,” which runs from mid-October to mid-November this year, has witnessed a shift in the overall consumption pattern. Chinese consumers’ spending is now increasingly driven by artificial intelligence (AI)-powered advancement and a rising “new pragmatism,” – prioritizing quality, diversity, service-driven and premium experience-driven purchases, while the platforms have been shifting away from price wars toward quality, efficiency and experience.

As the annual shopping bonanza is closely watched as a barometer for China’s consumption vitality, the new spending pattern, according to analysts, mirrors China’s ongoing consumption upgrade, which not only unlocks the potential of domestic demand but also fuels its structure optimization. Given that boosting consumption is a top priority in China’s economic work this year, the momentum also bodes well for the long-term high quality development of the world’s second-largest economy, analysts said.

Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com has generated record sales as of 23:59 on Tuesday, according to a post on JD.com’s WeChat account. The platform said orders nearly jumped by 60 percent year-on-year, while the number of shoppers who placed orders during the grand promotion also surged by 40 percent. The platform’s Double 11 shopping festival started on October 9 and will last until November 14.  

The sales of home appliances on e-commerce platform Suning also rose 48 percent from a year earlier in county-level markets from October 9 to November 12, with some categories doubling, according to a report the company sent to the Global Times on Wednesday. 

The consumption dynamics is also on vivid display on other platforms such as Taobao and Tmall, which to date have only released their partial sales figures as this year’s shopping gala lasts longer than the previous years. Taobao and Tmall reported that 80 brands exceeded 100 million yuan ($14.04 million) in sales within the first hour of sales, the Securities Times reported on Wednesday.

China’s “Double 11” Shopping Festival, which celebrates its 17th edition this year, has also received coverage by some foreign media outlets, with most gauging for clues of China’s consumption. 

Citing record sales at JD.com, a Bloomberg report said on Wednesday that the figure is “belying concerns that persistent deflation is discouraging consumers from spending in the world’s No. 2 economy.” The report also described the “Double 11” festival as “online bargains that dwarfs Cyber Monday and Black Friday in scale.” 

‘New pragmatism’ 

This year’s “Double 11” marks a shift away from “price wars toward quality, efficiency and experience,” experts and industry insiders said, stressing that multiple e-commerce platforms are now focusing more on optimizing the “structure” of consumption rather than merely expanding its “scale” by offering steep discounts.

This transition is partly fueled by AI technology, which has been penetrating almost every aspect of the e-commerce industry. 

During this year’s “Double 11” shopping festival, Tmall achieved full-scale AI deployment for the first time, enhancing search and recommendation accuracy and improving the conversion efficiency between recommended products and consumer demand, according to a report by the Economic Daily. JD.com has also deployed its AI large model JoyAI across over 1,800 scenarios, with its usage volume surging four times compared to the “618” shopping festival, which makes the model a core engine in improving delivery efficiency, said the post on JD.com’s WeChat account.

The popularity of AI gadgets has also spread across the consumption side. 

A Suning retail store manager told the Global Times on Wednesday that some best-sellers on the platforms are AI-powered home appliances that have the ability to “sense, think and interact,” such as air conditioners that adjust airflow based on family members’ locations, refrigerators that reveal ingredient freshness with a light touch on the screen, and robot vacuums that autonomously detect obstacles and plan cleaning paths.

“It has become an obvious trend that Chinese consumers are embracing ‘new pragmatism,’ seeking both experience and value in their spending. They are also willing to pay for premium scenario-based solutions,” the manager said. 

The manager’s observations are echoed by the upbeat sales on various online platforms regarding such items as pet supplies, outdoor gears and trendy collections, or what some consumers describe as “purchases that deliver emotional value and superior consumption experience.” 

During this year’s JD “Double 11” shopping bonanza, transaction volume for new customized flagship products reached five times that of last year. Among them, snacks, alcohol, home appliances and furniture, as well as computers and office supplies saw explosive year-on-year growth of 832 percent, 732 percent, 150 percent, and 115 percent, respectively. A Securities Times report said Taobao saw large gains in original fashion brands, and Douyin reported strong demand for specialty items including cast-iron cookware.

Service consumption has emerged as a new hotspot. Online travel platform Fliggy reported more than 1.6 million travel and vacation-related items sold during the Double 11 promotion period, the Securities Times report said.

“Those are positive signs showing the improvement in the shopping gala’s quality. Such lift runs in parallel with China’s consumption upgrade, and the broader picture of China’s economic transition from quantity-driven to quality-driven,” Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Observers pointed out that entering the 17th year, the “Double 11” shopping gala has evolved beyond a shopping festival as it now epitomizes not only consumption trend, but also deep technology penetration and coordinated industrial upgrade.

Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday that “this kind of growth reflects the resilience and dynamics of the Chinese economy.” 

“In addition to spurring domestic demand, the shopping festival also drives prosperity of related industries such as logistics and payments, injecting vitality into long-term economic growth,” he said.Â